Tuesday, February 23, 2016

One thing that Heller and McDonald demonstrated was that it didn't
really care about the Second Amendment within the Constitutional
Context. That means that those two cases are an absurdity in "Second
Amendment Jurisprudence". The absurdity starts with its minimalisation
of what Heller described as the "preferatory clause". The reason for the
nonsensical nature of the "individual right" interpretation is that it
takes the Second Amendment out of legislative and historic context.

But one need not go beyond the four corners of the document to show this
is an absurd interpretation of the Second Amendment since it is
presumed that a legal document will be interpreted so as to be
internally consistent. A particular section of the document shall not be
divorced from the rest of the act. Thus, if the Constitution mentions
certain goals or subjects in the preamble, it must be considered within
the terms of those goals and subjects.

There are two versions of
the Amendment and I will use this one for the purposes of the argument I
will be making for the purpose of clarity:

"A well
regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the
right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

That
means the phrase "A well regulated militia being necessary to the
security of a free state" was pretty much ignored or discounted in
Scalia's analysis. This is despite the rule of constitutional
interpretation that "It cannot be presumed that any clause in the
Constitution is intended to be without effect." The individual right
interpretation means that not only is the "preferatory clause" mere
surplusage, entirely without meaning, but so is the rest of the text

Of
course, the "Individual right" theory also neglects the preamble, which
most people seem to stop reading after the first three words:

"We
the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common
defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America."

I
would assert that both the preamble of the Constitution and the
"preferatory clause" are important to the analysis of the Second
Amendment within the proper constitutional context. That is because the
document needs to be read as a whole. Doing that it becomes clear that
one of the purposes of the US Constitution is to address matters of "the
common defence".

From Plato's Laws through common law and until
modern legal systems, preambles to constitutions have played an
important role in law and policy making. The preamble to the United
States Constitution has become a legend. The phrase “We the people of
the United States” and the remaining forty-five words of the preamble
are the most well-known part of the Constitution, and the section that
has had the greatest effect on the constitutions of other countries. And
yet, the preamble remains a neglected subject in the study of American
constitutional theory and receives scant attention in the literature.
This is a shame since a preamble is the part of the constitution that
best reflects the constitutional intentions of its drafters.

The
interpretive role of preambles is rooted in the common law tradition.
Edward Coke asserted that preambles to an act of parliament are a “good
mean to find out the meaning of the statute” and “the key to open
understanding thereof”, they are “the key to the statute and the key to
the makers.” William Blackstone referred to preambles as intended “to
help the construction of an act of parliament.” Blackstone noted that
whenever the statute is dubious, “the proem, or preamble, is often
called in to help the construction of an act of parliament.” However, in
a case of conflict between the preamble and the body of the act, the
body of the act prevails. This is still considered good law in common
law states. Some have a specific clause indicating the significant role
of preambles in statutory interpretation.

The preamble may not be
legally binding, but it is key to understanding the rest of the document
and should be given weight in any constitutional analysis. Any
interpretation that runs contrary to these principles is questionable.
Anything which assumes something which is not covered by the main text
must be suspect, which the individual rights interpretation does in
spades.

This takes us to two concepts of statutory interpretation:
(1) only items which are specifically mentioned are addressed within a
law. (2) items which are not specifically mentioned are not covered by
the statute.

Which takes us to Article I, Section 8, Clause 16, which gives Congress the power:

"To
provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for
governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the
United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of
the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the
discipline prescribed by Congress;"

I really don't want to get too much into how this one
sentence has been mangled and removed from constitutional context in the
attempt to create a right which does not exist. The grammar is handled
in this article: Dennis Baron, Guns and Grammar: The Linguistics of the Second Amendment. I will say that Prof. Baron would give the
"preferatory" clause far more weight than it was given in the Heller
decision:

Reading the Second Amendment as a statement in which
every word counts follows from the opinion articulated by Chief Justice
John Marshall: “It cannot be presumed that any clause in the
constitution is intended to be without effect” (Marbury v. Madison,
1803). But even without that landmark ruling, it would have been clear
to 18th-century readers that the first part of the Second Amendment was
bound to the second part in a cause-and-effect relationship, that the
right to bear arms was tied by the framers directly to the need for a
well-regulated militia.

If you wish to go outside the
Constitution, there are many more problems with the Individual right
interpretation. In fact, both the Heller and McDonald decisions were
exercises in sophistry which removed the interpretation from an
"originalist" and "constitutionalist" context and placed them into pure
fantasy. If anything, the Heller and McDonald decisions are
unconstitutional exercises of power by judicial amendment of the
constitution. McDonald even more so since it somehow neglected Article
I, Section 8, Clause 16 and created a right which was present in state
laws in contrast to its non-existence in the US Constitution.

I am
truly disappointed by the praise of the emperor's new clothes in
McDonald v Chicago by the justices willingness to separate the Second
Amendment from Constitutional context by even countenancing that it had
nothing to do with Article I, Section 8, Clause 16. How does Congress'
power "incorporate" to the States without an amendment to the
Constitution? McDonald can only be described as silly buggers and not
really precedent.

However
captivating such arguments may appear upon a merely casual or
superficial view of the subject, they are believed to be specious, and
to rest upon premises at variance with all the fundamental principles
upon which the government is based; and that, upon a more mature and
careful investigation, as to the object for which the right was retained
their fallacy becomes evident. The dangers to be apprehended from the
existence and exercise of such right, not only to social order, domestic
tranquillity and the upright and independent administration of the
government, but also to the established institutions of the country,
appears so obvious as to induce the belief that they are present to
every intelligent mind, and to render their statement here unnecessary.

The revisionist theory that the Second Amendment somehow applies to a context outside the common defence is beautifully destroyed since it does not withstand scrutiny within the four corners of the US Constitution.

It is even more devastated if we are going to go outside the document since we need to have the "scholars" explain how:

The concept of self-defence did not allow for the use of deadly force as
a first option when the Constitution was written. Deadly force at that time was a LAST option. There was
a duty to retreat. Deadly force could only be used if there was no
lesser alternative and all other options had been exhausted. You had to
have your back to the wall to be able to kill someone. --carrying a weapon would create a presumption that you intended to do harm.

Where are the other versions of "gun rights" in Common Law nations?

The issue of civilian control of the military, which fear of standing armies is a common thread in English political thought. It was mentioned in the debates in relation to this Amendment, whereas personal defence was next to nonexistent.

regulation of private arms has always been a part of the common law.

When
primary source material is read in its complete form, it highlights the
above issues and the lack of concern with a right to own a weapon
outside the context of the common defence.

Why the US Constitution would concern itself with matters of "personal defence", especially in light of point (1) above?

Why state constitutional provisions explicitly mention this right, but it is not mentioned in the US Constitution.

There
are far too many flaws in the Individual Right interpretation of the
Second Amendment when one looks at it critically. There are even more
flaws in the "precedent" set by Heller-McDonald despite its
"friendliness" to firearms regulation. These are dangerous decisions to
be left in the common law cannon.

It is a shame that Heller and McDonald have been allowed to create mischief in the US legal system.
I
will not even bother readdressing the absurdity of the associated
insurrection theory of the Second Amendment since it is so far from the
Constitutional contexts as to be laughable. The fact that so many people
are willing to accept it in their ignorance is astounding.

Monday, February 22, 2016

So, Trump, and the other Republican candidates for that matter, all claim we have done nothing against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, Trump most notably so in his recent comments re Pope Francis.

And this, after chastising Ted Cruz for lying; more of the pot calling the kettle black!

This lie is in sharp contrast to the reality that we have been hitting ISIS hard for a long time, along with our allies, doing considerable damage to them. From this week's STrib indicating that ISIS is going broke, because of those airstrikes led by the good ol' US of A under the leadership of President Obama.

photo from the AP, circa 2014

IS faces budget crunch, cutting perks and trimming salaries:

FILE - In this summer of 2014 photo released on a militant social media account, a convoy of Islamic State militants in Raqqa, Syria. The extremist group that once bragged about minting its own currency is now accepting only U.S. dollars in Raqqa, slashing salaries across the board and imposing �exit fees� for those trying to leave its domain.
BEIRUT — Faced with a cash shortage in its so-called caliphate, the Islamic State group has slashed salaries across the region, asked Raqqa residents to pay utility bills in black market American dollars, and is now releasing detainees for a price of $500 a person.
The extremists who once bragged about minting their own currency are having a hard time meeting expenses, thanks to coalition airstrikes and other measures that have eroded millions from their finances since last fall. Having built up loyalty among militants with good salaries and honeymoon and baby bonuses, the group has stopped providing even the smaller perks: free energy drinks and Snickers bars.
Necessities are dwindling in its urban centers, leading to shortages and widespread inflation, according to exiles and those still suffering under its rule. Interviews gathered over several weeks included three exiles with networks of family and acquaintances still in the group's stronghold in Raqqa, residents in Mosul, and analysts who say IS is turning to alternative funding streams, including in Libya.
In Raqqa, the group's stronghold in Syria, salaries have been halved since December, electricity is rationed, and prices for basics are spiraling out of reach, according to people exiled from the city.
"Not just the militants. Any civil servant, from the courts to the schools, they cut their salary by 50 percent," said a Raqqa activist now living in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, who remains in close contact with his native city. But that apparently wasn't enough close the gap for a group that needs money to replace weapons lost in airstrikes and battles, and pays its fighters first and foremost. Those two expenses account for two-thirds of its budget, according to an estimate by Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, a researcher with the Middle East Forum who sources Islamic State documents,
Within the last two weeks, the extremist group started accepting only dollars for "tax" payments, water and electric bills, according to the Raqqa activist, who asked to be identified by his nom de guerre Abu Ahmad for his safety. "Everything is paid in dollars," he said. His account was bolstered by another ex-Raqqa resident, who, like Ahmad, also relies on communications with a network of family and acquaintances still in the city.
Al-Tamimi came across a directive announcing the fighters' salary cuts in Raqqa: "On account of the exceptional circumstances the Islamic State is facing, it has been decided to reduce the salaries that are paid to all mujahedeen by half, and it is not allowed for anyone to be exempted from this decision, whatever his position."
Those circumstances include the dramatic drop in global prices for oil — once a key source of income — airstrikes that have targeted cash stores and oil infrastructure, supply line cuts, and crucially, the Iraqi government's decision to stop paying civil servants in territory controlled by the extremists.

And it's not like this is only recent damage to ISIS; from the International Business Times back in September 2014. This pretty much brings us to the choices that the GOP candidates are liars, so bone ignorant on the realities of the regional conflict as to disqualify them from serving in any office more demanding than dog catcher; or both. :

US Airstrikes In Syria Cripple ISIS Funding By Hitting Oil Refineries

ISTANBUL -- U.S. airstrikes in Syria targeting oil refineries
controlled by the Islamic State group are cutting heavily into the
group’s profits, which at one point were, on average, between $2 million
and $3 million a day, analysts say.
“It is crippling for ISIS,” Luay al-Khatteeb, director of the Iraq
Energy Institute, said of the destruction of oil refineries. After more
than a week of U.S. and coalition bombings targeting the Sunni militant
group in Syria, “profits [for ISIS] are out of the equation." The
group’s profits are now in the thousands rather than millions of dollars
per day, Khatteeb said in a discussion on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Istanbul.
Khatteeb said before the airstrikes, ISIS was making anywhere between
30,000 and 40,000 barrels a day in just Iraq, and in Syria, they
produced 50,000 barrels. Now, they are making on average 20,000 barrels a
day.
Over the past three months the Islamic State group, also known as
ISIS or ISIL, has gained control of large parts of Syria and Iraq,
including oil fields on the edges of Iraqi Kurdistan. The extremist
group began selling oil, turning itself into a multimillion-dollar
enterprise. The group has sold both crude and refined oil to locals in
Iraq and Syria, and purportedly on the black market in Turkey. According
to Khatteeb, ISIS sold the oil for prices ranging between $20 and $40 a
barrel. Each truck transporting oil through the border via what
Khatteeb said was an already well established "smuggling network" was
worth about 7,000 barrels.
The money has been used to finance, at least in part, the group’s
weapons, ammunition, soldier salaries and procure other resources needed
to fight.
Describing ISIS as a “network of death” at his speech at the United Nations last week, President Barack Obama said the U.S.-led coalition would starve the group financially.

Lying is for losers -- like Trump; THIS damage to ISIS is what winning looks like, regardless of polls or primaries, and this is what it looks like to be the president instead of a reality tv celebrity. If Republicans want to win the general election and get the White House back, they need to stop being such eager consumers of lies and the liars who peddle them.

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Not a serous possibility, sadly, given our constitutional limitation to natural born citizens (even if we can reasonably assume we know what that means, absent a SCOTUS decision on it).

On the other hand.....Rubio is shooting his ads for president in Canada. While far too many Americans are weak on geography, as we see here, and especially conservatives as we see here, I think we can safely argue that we don't want a president who is weak on which side of the border is Canada and which side is the old US of eh?, er A. But it is conservatives who are the weakest on geography :

Worryingly, but hardly surprisingly, the poll also found that the further a poll respondent thought Ukraine was from its real location, the more likely he was to support US military intervention in Ukraine. Few Americans could find Iraq (Eye-raq to most), Afghanistan, or Iran (Eye-ran) on the map.
“Let’s get those dirty Commies,” goes the latest wave of war fever to sweep the US, “if we can only find them!” Some respondents put Ukraine in Australia, or South America.
Interestingly, the poll found that the group least able to locate Ukraine was +65 year olds – core Republican voters.

From the STrib:

OOPS — RUBIO AD IS SET IN CANADA The scenes and narration mimic Ronald Reagan’s legendary ad “Morning Again in America.” But Republican
presidential hopeful Sen. Marco Rubio’s new ad of the same name opens with a shot of Vancouver, Canada. “It’s morning again in America,” the ad begins with shots of a harbor, city street and suburban neighborhood.
“Today, more men and women are out of work than ever before in our nation’s history.”

Well, if they can't run in our elections, then at least those enterprising Canuks have an alternative to our more toxic politics (from facebook):

Cape Breton Island: Website Invites Americans to Move to Canadian Island if Donald Trump Is Elected

The
website, cbiftrumpwins.com, was created by radio host Rob Calabrese of
Sydney, Nova Scotia. He says he has gotten serious inquiries since
launching the site, news outlets reported.

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. — The rivalry between Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio has escalated rapidly in advance of Saturday’s GOP primary here, and on Tuesday Mr. Rubio’s campaign accused Mr. Cruz’s team of an “underhanded tactic” in a state whose primary contests have had a lengthy history of them.
Mr. Rubio’s campaign indicated that it believes Mr. Cruz’s operatives have been circulating a Facebook post claiming to be from South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, one of Mr. Rubio’s fiercest supporters who has appeared with him in close to a dozen events over the past several days.

Boo bloody hoo Rubio, and too-bad Carson before him.

These are nothing new, these are business as usual tactics for the GOP.

To protest them is to ignore or to attempt to deny that this is anything other than Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) on the right -- and nowhere more so than in South Carolina, election cycle after election cycle.

The GOP is always the party of the dirty tricks, not the values party and not the party to which anyone who values religious standards for conduct should ever adhere. The GOP is the party of the gullible, the party of the-end-justifies-the-means. It's hard to know which is worse - the crooked political operatives who cheat and lie, or the stupid people who fall for their dirty tricks and bigot-pandering, in their voting and in their donations.

I fully expect to see these and more of the dirty tricks used routinely on the right pulled out of their 'rat-f*cking' Nixon-style bag of dirty campaigning methods.
One of the examples that comes to mind, the George Dubya Bush campaign in South Carolina promoting the false rumor that John McCain had a black child out of wedlock; the reality was that the McCains had adopted a child from Bangladesh. Let me review what those 'family values' Jesus-loving Republicans did to John McCain back in 2000 in South Carolina.

The Data Lounge highlighted a few - the race-baiting phone calls that McCain had a black child with a prostitute, that his wife was a drug addict, that he came back from being a prisoner of war too 'damaged' to be entrusted as commander in chief, and that McCain committed treason while a prisoner of war.

This is the same party that not only cannibalized it's own rival campaigner for the nomination, but later ran the Swiftboat ads against John Kerry.
Are there ever dirty tricks on the left? Of course there are, but not on the scale or with the approval and participation of the mainstream political establishment to the same degree as the GOP.

Friday, February 12, 2016

Donald Trump and the rest of the 2016 cast of clown candidates are all promoting some degree of Islamophobia, to gin up fear among their base in the hopes that will translate into votes. I have routinely - and accurately - described conservative voters as poorly educated, and as being low information voters, and as being bigots.

Nothing makes that point more clearly than this sad commentary on the lack of geography and history knowledge among United States citizens:

...41% of his [Donald Trump] supporters would favor
bombing Agrabah to only 9% who are opposed to doing that. Agrabah is the
country from Aladdin. Overall 30% of Republican primary voters say they
support bombing it to 13% who are opposed.

Sadly, the Dems are better, but not by nearly enough of a margin to avoid shame.

We asked the same question
of Democrats, and 36% of them opposed bombing Agrabah to 19% in support.

I can only hope that in the context of polling questions, which often come at inconvenient times while respondents are multi-tasking, that there was some unfortunate confusion with a familiar sounding place name not registering correctly as fiction rather than fact.

To elaborate further on the poll which produced that sad bit of Islamophobia, from Public Policy Polling year-end:

-54% support Trump's proposed Muslim ban, to only 25% who oppose it.
Among Trump's own supporters there's 82/5 support for it. Cruz voters
favor it as well, 57/25. Rubio voters are pretty evenly divided on it
with 39% in favor and 40% opposed, while Bush voters oppose it 21/37.
-46% support a national database of Muslims, to only 37% opposed.
Trump voters support this 66/15 but voters for the other top candidates
are more closely divided- Cruz's (40/41) and Rubio's (44/45) narrowly
oppose it while Bush's (36/49) do by a wider spread.
-36% think thousands of Arabs in New Jersey cheered when the World
Trade Center collapsed to 35% who don't think that happened. Supporters
of Trump (49/24) and Cruz (47/22) both pretty firmly think that occurred
while Bush (37/51) and Rubio (22/46) voters don't think it did.
-Only 28% of GOP primary voters go so far as to think mosques in the
United States should be shut down to 47% opposed to that. Trump voters
are on an island on that issue- they support it 45/28 but backers of
Cruz (23/40) and especially Rubio (18/66) and Bush (14/68) are strongly
against it.
-Supporters of most of the major GOP candidates agree with the basic
premise that Islam should be legal in the United States- it's 59/21 with
Cruz voters, 67/11 with Bush voters, and 77/10 with Rubio voters. Trump
supporters are off on their own on that one too though- just 33% think
Islam should be legal to 42% who think it should be illegal. Overall 53%
of primary voters think Islam should be allowed to just 26% who don't
think it should be.

To put some of these findings about real modern day issues and Trump
voters in context, 41% of his voters think Japanese internment was a
good thing, to 37% who don't.

While I expect Trump's popularity to continue to decline overall, I sadly do not expect the insidious and deep rooted Islamophobia on the right to do so.

Earlier this week a court issued a decision that Kim Davis, Rowan County, Kentucky clerk, acted legitimately and legally in removing her name from marriage licenses, including those issued to same sex couples.

Kim Davis had attempted to thwart the legal decision of the Supreme Court by not issuing any same-sex marriage licenses.

Pending the progress of a law suit through the courts about her religious rights to deny same sex couples marriage licenses, she was ordered not to interfere with the issuance of such licenses by her office -- and her office has moved forward, issuing marriage licenses, including to same sex couples.

What remains to be seen, to be decided by a federal court, is whether or not Kim Davis as the top elected official responsible for issuing marriage licenses may continue to refuse to do so while allowing subordinates in the office to issue such licenses. The issue has never been important to anyone else as to whether or not her name was included on a form, and in point of fact, the state of Kentucky is in the process of removing individual county clerk names from such forms.

However, for the moment, it does appear that Kentucky state law DOES require that format of clerk identification. The recent decision is based on an unproven assumption that those licenses without the name of a county clerk would be recognized as legal.

Davis' term of office runs until 2019, if she chooses to complete her term, in the likely event that the federal courts rule against her having any right to force her religion on others in her official capacity.

One of the proposals for same sex marriage licenses in Kentucky would have two different forms of marriage license - a separate but equal kind of development that would likely be illegal due to disparate treatment of same sex couples. This strikes me as one of the dumber so-called compromises for those who have difficulty adjusting to the 21st century extension of rights and freedom to those previously excluded from them. In any case such a measure would not address the core issue, that Davis and those other bureaucratic officials seek to use their office to thwart or interfere with same sex marriage, and to impose their religious beliefs on others who do not share it, using their positions - elected or otherwise - to make their offices theocratic in nature, as in effectively creating an official state or local government level religion.

But in the end, the occupiers agreed to disarm and surrender
themselves in the morning so long as the right-wing Reverend Franklin
Graham, who spoke with one occupier by phone during the standoff, was on
hand to physically escort them off the refuge. It took more than an
hour from the first time that possibility was raised for the group to
agree to it, in part because they remained convinced that the FBI would
come in shooting overnight and in part because they said they would
never agree to go to prison or give up their guns.

The occupiers will be in jail and will be giving up their guns, in spite of their whining and gnashing of teeth. It beats getting shot, and appeals to their desire to be crazy over-the-top drama queens.

As a bonus, the Feds arrested Cliven Bundy, father of two of the Oregon occupation leaders, notorious for his own governmental armed stand off back in 2014, in Nevada.

Courts will be busy, demonstrating that while justice moves slowly, it does move. I am looking forward to a bit of that 'grinding' mentioned in numerous historic quotes:

A few more candidates have dropped out, Fiorina and Christie. The shelf of candidates on the right have been singularly shallow, none of them really have great depth, and all of them have serious "oppo" material that would be a detriment to their candidacies the same way the '47% are takers' and his record of exporting jobs hurt Romney (and some, worse than what properly came out about Romney).

I would argue that neither one has ever been a serious contender to be the presidential nominee for the GOP - and neither have the others who dropped out (left or right). Candidates like Jindal and Perry never had a prayer of winning the nomination, in spite of all their prayer rallies. (Does anyone even remember Perry was briefly a candidate, ....or Jindal?)

A few who still hang on, like Jim Gilmore, John Kasich, and Ben Carson have never really been serious contenders either, they just haven't left yet. Gilmore, for example, got 0% of the New Hampshire primary vote and received 0% of the Iowa caucus vote as well.

I doubt that even most of the political savvy, the most extensively and encyclopedic informed follower of the 2016 election cycle, could readily identify Jim Gilmore without a caption identifying him, and that few more could readily identify Kasich without a label (myself included) among the candidate line ups. Even Carson's advisers and coaches find him to be a joke. I expect that we will see Gilmore and Carson quit soon, with Kasich following their example after South Carolina. I expect Jeb to hang on until April, maybe May. The Bush brand is so badly tarnished, and Jeb is so lacking in any ideas that were not already espoused and implemented by his brother Dubya, that regardless of how much money, or what aging family member Jeb drags out to be his proxy supporters, it is unlikely anything he could do would change the deep disaffection that the country holds for the Bush legacy.

Even though they won the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, respectively, I would further argue that neither Trump nor Cruz have a serious chance at being the GOP candidate either; the establishment still holds the real power, if less so than in the past. And the establishment doesn't like either one, and are, I expect, going to be successful, ultimately, in preventing them from running under the Grand Old Party imprimatur, with all that goes with the official party approval.

I can only surmise that the candidacies of the unlikely proceeded from some angle, some strategy, that participating as a candidate would in some way pay off afterwards, that it would add some degree of prestige or profit. A few, like Kasich and Fiorina, appear to have been /appear to be running more for the second spot on the ticket of VP.

Steve walks warily down the street,
With the brim pulled way down low
Ain't no sound but the sound of his feet,
Machine guns ready to go
Are you ready,
Are you ready for this
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
To the sound of the beat
[Chorus]
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I'm gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
see the rest of the lyrics here: https://www.bing.com/search?q=queen+youtube+channel%2C+another+one+bites+the+dust&pc=MOZI&form=MOZTSB

And then there's the progress of 'the Donald' Turnip-top Trump.... which can only remind me of another Queen classic:

Friday, February 5, 2016

The time has come for the big field of Republicans to go away, according to this recent info from the Huff Po:

A majority of likely Republican
voters think that every candidate save Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas),
businessman Donald Trump, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and retired
neurosurgeon Ben Carson should drop out. (The survey was conducted in
part before Paul and Santorum's announcements, but finds ample support
for the idea of them ending their respective campaigns.)
The other GOP candidates whom voters say they wouldn't miss much
include former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie,
former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and
former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore.Even Carson is teetering on the
bubble -- 43 percent say he should quit the race, compared to the 12
percent or fewer who say the same about Trump, Rubio or Cruz.

But when asked who is most likely to win the primary overall, only 27% of Republicans cite Trump, down 30 points from a poll
conducted just days before caucus night. 29% now expect Marco Rubio to
be the nominee, following the Florida senator’s surprisingly strong
finish in Iowa. Last week, only 9% thought Rubio was most likely to win.
Expectations for Ted Cruz, at 24%, are slightly behind Cruz and Trump.
No other candidate is higher than 2%.

I applaud Ben Carson for his polite skepticism regarding the apology from Ted Cruz, the one where he indicated he would wait to see what the actions of Cruz show about his sincerity. The reality though is that Carson would likely come in third out of three among the candidates from Florida, Rubio, Bush and Carson. It is not clear that any one of those three could win Florida in a national election, with Florida being an important swing state essential to achieving the presidency. Carson is an idiot savant, brilliant in his profession, but clearly prone to weird and wandering statements that indicate he lacks the broad, well-rounded education and background necessary for the presidency. He is unpopular outside of the other crazy evangelical extremists like himself, and losing ground fast.

Imho, the buck stops with Cruz for the actions of his campaign; his failure to fire anyone from his campaign, along with his defense of promoting a false narrative (Carson never indicated he would have a "big announcement" suggestive of quitting), argues he had very little relative problem with the actions of his staff who represented him in Iowa.

At the same time we see the Trump classic conservative false claim of being victim, with the accompanying failure to own his part in his own loss in the state of Iowa. Clearly his bad second place is more likely the result of his refusing to attend the candidates debate. No individual responsibility there! Indeed it appears that Trump might finally be offending the gullible with his bad loser antics. Whining as he has been about losing, on top of his bitching about Megan Kelly, is showing him to be quite different than the tough guy image he was attempting to project. Now he just looks like a loser with foolish excuses.

WHEN he fails to be the right wing nominee, it remains to be seen if Trump will pursue even greater hubris and folly by running as an independent, further fracturing the conservative vote, out of either spite or the mistaken notion that he could win. Trump CANNOT win, except possibly in the alternate reality in his own egotistical mind. Among other problems, no candidate for president has ever previously won after a single divorce, other than Reagan, never mind multiple divorces. And there appears to be some inherent opposition to a foreigner in the White House as first lady, which would apply to Trump's latest wife, as well as to the wife of Jeb Bush, from Mexico.

A little history trivia, the only foreign born first lady was the wife of John Quincy Adams, Louisa Johnson, who was born in London, daughter of an Englishwoman and an American merchant (Joshua Johnson). Her uncle Thomas Johnson later served as governor of Maryland and a Justice of the Supreme Court. Some of the Johnson family had always remained in the colonial US, and were - unlike other potential first ladies who are immigrants or 1st generation Americans - always well accepted socially and politically.

We see Rand Paul, Rick Santorum and Mike Hucksterbee all dropping out of the race.

It is unlikely Santorum could carry his home state of Pennsylvania if he were the candidate for the GOP; likewise it is unlikely Mike Huckabee could win his home state of Akransas. More aptly Huckster-bee, since he sold the remains of his tattered integrity pushing quack diabetes cures.
The same could be said for remaining candidate Chris Christie, who is despised in his home state where he has been a very unsuccessful governor, and for the other departed governor candidates Jindal and Walker. This is similar to failed candidates in the prior election, like Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann, who did not have the support in their home state of Minnesota for higher office, and for Paul Ryan who failed to carry his home state of Wisconsin in the 2012 election cycle, and did not even carry the vote in his own hometown of Jaynesville.
Likewise, the other candidates who have left the race really never had a prayer of becoming the GOP candidate; rather, they either ran on delusionally inflated ego, or in the hopes of the exercise in futility having some other form of payout. I would argue that most of the candidates from the right in the 2016 election cycle never seriously believed they were viable candidates.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

What a shame that there is another round of bad weather that seems to be targeting certain sections of the Bible Belt as well as the early voters of Iowa.
We have seen how evangelicals like to point to events like this as divine wrath.
Following their magical thinking, then it would seem that Jesus is unhappy with Trump and all the rest on the right, and doesn't want the good religious bigots and fools on the right in Iowa to get out to vote. Otherwise HE wouldn't be making it so very difficult, right?
Tsk tsk tsk.
That the caucus voting got in at all before the bad weather hit must be the result of the good members of the Iowa Supreme Court who ensured that gay people could marry. No doubt that is why the storm held off as long as it did -- to let Bernie and Hillary tie, more or less, since both supported gay marriage and for all intents and purposes they both won.
But that bad weather is still smighting those evil evangelicals.......following their own reasoning (or lack of it). Storms hit Tennessee and Kentucky as well, no doubt leaving a Jebus message for those evangelicals who support Kim Davis style sexual orientation bigotry, sending a message to his own, like Jesus likes to do.

Turning up the heat on right wing lies

Opinions

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”

― Isaac Asimov, "A Cult of Ignorance," Newsweek (Jan. 1980)

We stand with PP

past wisdom

"I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it."Billy Graham - Parade (1 February 1981)

An astute observation from Bertrand Russell

"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones."

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